This second five-year term like no other is far from over, yet 2027 and its cohort of putative candidates are already moving forward. This last reshuffle with Gabriel Attal at its head – and that puts Rachida Dati back in the saddle – is a new turning point. Behind the scenes, some are learning to dodge tripping, others are familiarizing themselves with the art of conspiracy, in short, everyone is preparing for the post-Emmanuel Macron era with rigor and determination. The L’Express political department offers to help you follow, thanks to a weekly meeting on our websitethe progress of those ambitious people who hope to climb, quickly and without injury, the steps of power.
From desire to need
“Need for Europe”: the Macronists have their slogan for the next European election campaign. “A few years ago, we would have rather said ‘Want Europe,'” admits someone close to the head of state. A lexical shift full of meaning. The head of the Renaissance list, which was initially to be revealed in January, will be announced in the wake of the change of government sequence, in an attempt to take advantage of the political dynamic generated by the appointment of Gabriel Attal.
Borne-Darmanin: say it with flowers
Elisabeth Borne found it hard to believe it: on the evening of her dismissal from Matignon by Emmanuel Macron, she received a huge bouquet of flowers from… Gérald Darmanin. She and the Minister of the Interior had not always had easy relations but, in the last period, the host of Beauvau had supported her all the more because he knew he was not in the running to replace her. Gérald Darmanin had even invited her, just before Christmas, to dinner in a chic seafood restaurant.
The truth about the little word
The image has made the rounds on social networks: we see Jérôme Bayle passing a small piece of paper to his neighbor, the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, while Gabriel Attal sets out his measures for farmers last Friday. “It was his RIB”, shouted his detractors, who accused him of having lifted the Carbone motorway blockade too early. It was actually the telephone number of a farming family facing a particular difficulty locally.
The forgetting of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra
Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, as L’Express reported, has favored field visits since her setbacks without notifying the media. And even forgetting to warn… the owners of the educational establishments to which the Minister of National Education is visiting. The Marne departmental council, manager and owner of the department’s colleges, only learned of the minister’s arrival at the Pontfaverger-Moronvilliers college, on Tuesday January 23 at 9 a.m., through a tip from the prefecture, the day before at 19 hours. The vice-president of the departmental council had to urgently change his schedule to be able to accommodate the minister. The newspaper The union relates that the affair was little appreciated by local elected officials…
Dati and the boxing glove
His delicate SMS messages, often embellished with tender emojis, are well known in the small political world. Rachida Dati does not have the reputation of holding back her pen when it comes to settling scores. But in the opinion of all those (many) who have had the chance to receive her missives, the Minister of Culture has an appreciable ability: after having delivered the core of her thoughts, she can meet the one she has shaken and behave with him as if nothing had happened. Frankness and roundness.
In his sights at the moment, the boss of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, who condemned in his speech on January 31 “the poaching which does neither good for democracy nor good for politics”. A few weeks earlier, the same Retailleau had received an SMS from the new minister expressing her dissatisfaction. Substantive divergence on the preservation of the cultural heritage of Nagorno-Karabakh, the hobbyhorse of the senator from Vendée? No. “You make racist remarks about me,” Dati soberly accuses him, without further details. And to conclude with a boxing glove emoji, which must have left the recipient stunned.
At Vautrin’s office, two weeks and then leaves
Barely named, already landed: in Catherine Vautrin’s team, trial periods do not exceed two weeks. The Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity has just separated from her chief of staff – a sort of super-organizer of her agenda and her travels -, in office only since… January 12 (according to the decree of the Official Journal dated January 17).
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